


Ryan's Legacy

by captainamergirl



Category: The Young and the Restless
Genre: F/M, Implied future Jictoria, J.T. is not and never will be an abuser in my stories, Rare Characters, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27131869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/captainamergirl
Summary: The anniversary of Ryan's death hits Victoria especially hard this year.
Relationships: J.T. Hellstrom/Victoria Newman, Victoria Newman/Ryan McNeil
Kudos: 1





	Ryan's Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> This is obviously pretty AU. I saw a pic of Scott Reeves (ex-Ryan) playing the guitar and had this random idea for the bar scene. I hope it plays out okay. Please leave feedback. Thanks.
> 
> Note: JT is NOT an abuser in my stories. I hated that plotline.

**Ryan’s Legacy**  
  
_November 27, 2006_  
  
It was pouring down rain and sleet as Victoria Newman-McNeil ducked under the eaves of a roadside bar called “The Pit.” The name seemed fitting just from what she could see of the outside – with its sagging roof and signs advertising American beer hanging haphazardly in the grimy windows.  
  
She sighed and scraped the bottom of her muddy shoes off on the stoop as she opened the door. Loud honky-tonk music immediately assaulted her ears as she walked inside. She saw two older men at the bar leering at her and immediately went to take a seat in the other room, away from their wandering eyes.  
  
She pulled up a seat at a scarred table and flopped down into it, holding her head. Today was a bad day. A really, really bad day. It was the anniversary of a day she desperately wanted to forget and yet could not. She should be home with her son RJ, reading him a story and tucking him into bed right then, but instead, she was here at this dumpy nightmare of a dive appropriately named because it was the pits.  
  
Today was a terrible day indeed. Tears moistened her eyes as she thought of her beloved Ryan and their shared memories that seemed to have happened a lifetime ago. All she had left of him was their beautiful, brown-eyed son who looked so much like him. It should be enough, but on days like today, when the memories surged up, nothing could comfort her.  
  
“Forget it, Vicki,” she told herself. “Don’t lose it in front of these people.” She quickly took her cell phone out of her purse to distract herself from her tears. She dialed information, and they put her through to a towing company.  
  
“Sal’s Garage,” a gruff male voice answered.  
  
“Hi, yes. My name is Victoria Newman-McNeil, and I am stranded at some bar called The Pit outside Genoa City; and I need someone to pick me up and tow my car. It just stopped on the road, and I had to walk about a mile in the rain to find an open place,” she said, sounding upset as she ran a hand through her dark, soaking wet hair. She was chilled to the bone, drenched clean through by the rain, but tried to ignore the shivering sensations that began from the inside-out.  
  
“The Pit? Off route 61?” The man asked through what sounded like a mouthful of chips.  
  
“Yeah, I think so. I’ve never been to this area before.”  
  
“Well, it’s a little out of the way, and all my drivers are out right now … But if we really pull together, I think I can have a truck there to pick you and your car up in about … oh, three hours?”  
  
Vicki about choked on her tongue. “Th-three hours?” She demanded. “Three hours? _Really?”_  
  
“Yes. Maybe you should call someone to come pick you up, so you don’t have to wait,” he said.  
  
Vicki shook her head adamantly as if he could see her doing it. “No, no. I’ll wait. Thanks.” She disconnected the call and stuck her phone back inside her purse.  
  
Sure she could call someone else who would drop their late-night TV viewing to rush out and pick her up, but she didn’t want to deal with them. She didn’t want their sympathy or, worse, their pity. So far, only her mother Nikki had remembered the anniversary of Ryan’s death – or the only one who spoke to Vicki about it anyway. Nikki had tried to discourage Vicki from going on the business trip on this particular weekend, but Victoria had insisted. She would not – no, she refused – to let this bring her down or interrupt her life. And she did have a life – she couldn’t keep dwelling on the past anymore. It hurt too damn much.  
  
Victoria heard voices behind her and saw the side profiles of two men entering from the backroom. Victoria blinked her teary eyes, and immediately, her heart jumped into her throat as her gaze narrowed on the sight of the shorter man in a Stetson hat with a guitar slung over his shoulder.  
  
“No, it can’t be … it can’t,” Victoria whispered to herself. She quickly pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming; she really dug her flawlessly manicured nails into her arm. And to her complete surprise, she saw a spot of blood jump to the surface of her skin.  
  
“I’m not dreaming! _I’m not dreaming!”_ she exclaimed, drawing looks from two haggard-looking women sitting at the table beside hers. She immediately jumped to her feet and shakily scurried over to the man with Ryan’s face.  
  
“Ryan, Ryan!” she said, grabbing his arm.  
  
He quickly wrenched it away, looking at her like she was insane. There was surprisingly no recognition in his dark brown eyes. But they were dark brown, and he looked exactly as Her Ryan had. He had the same sandy-brown hair and slight yet muscular build.  
  
“Ryan, why did you pull away from me?” She asked. “Don’t you recognize me?”  
  
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma'am; you must have me confused with someone else.” His voice was accented with a southern twang that wasn’t familiar to her, but she didn’t care.  
  
“No, no, you’re Ryan. Ryan McNeil. You’re my husband! You have an adopted son named Philip and a son with me. RJ - Ryan Jr. We were first married when I was just sixteen. We had a wonderful life together …” She sounded desperate to her own ears, but she needed him to acknowledge her. He was the living, breathing version of Her Ryan. She had felt Ryan take his final breath on their wedding day in her arms, but he had obviously survived somehow as she was staring at his mirror image.  
  
“No, I’m sorry. I’m not Ryan Mc- er, whatever it was. My name is Scott,” he said. Seeing her disbelief, he gestured to his friend. “Gerry, tell her my name.”  
  
“You’re Scott, alright. We’ve known each other for years, and we play in a band together.”  
  
Victoria shook her head, tears flooding her eyes. “No. No. No. You’re Ryan. My Ryan …”  
  
The man shook his head adamantly. “I’m not. My name is Scott. I have a wife, and she’s not you – I’m sorry.” He felt around in his blue jeans pocket and withdrew his wallet, flipping it open and holding it out to Victoria. “See, that’s my wife, Jennifer, and these are our three daughters, Rebecca, Heather, and Amelia. I don’t have any boys.” Victoria looked at the smiling faces of the little girls. They were spitting images of him.  
  
Victoria took a step back. “You’re not him, are you? You’re really not him …”  
  
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but no…”  
  
“You must think I’m insane,” she said, swiping at her face, which was coursing with tears.  
  
Gerry, Scott’s friend, ripped a handful of paper napkins out of a dispenser on the table beside him. He passed them to Vicki, and she covered her face with them.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she moaned. “I’m so sorry. I just wanted to believe …”  
  
She felt a hand graze her arm and looked down at it. It was Scott’s hand. Not Ryan’s. She remembered Ryan’s touch even now, and Scott’s touch didn’t feel anything like he had. It wasn’t as gentle or as probing, and it didn’t make her skin dimple with goosebumps the way Ryan’s always had.  
  
This lookalike of Ryan’s was just that – a lookalike. A doppelganger. “They say everyone in the world has a twin,” she said with a little shrug. “I guess I just met Ryan’s.”  
  
Scott nodded. “Look, I’m sorry, but we’ve got to go. We have a gig tomorrow across the state lines, and we need to get going. Will you be alright?”  
  
“Yes, yes, I’ll be fine,” she said.  
  
“Okay, take care, and I hope you find … whatever it is you’re looking for,” Scott said. He patted her arm, and then he and his friend moved away and out of her sight.  
  
“How humiliating,” Victoria muttered as she sunk back down into the chair, she had recently vacated. But she soon felt sobs welling up in her throat, so he quickly jumped back to her feet and grabbed her purse, blindly feeling her way to the women’s restroom.  
  
She locked herself inside a stall and allowed herself to sob for a good ten minutes. She missed Ryan; god, she missed him. The experts – the psychologists and grief counselors Victoria’s parents had assigned to look after her following Ryan’s death – had all told her it got easier. That in time, the hurt faded almost completely away.  
  
But here, sitting in the soiled, dirty bathroom of The Pit exactly five years later, the pain of losing Ryan McNeil was as fresh and real as ever.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
“God, Victoria, why didn’t you tell me?” JT Hellstrom asked as he led a shaky Victoria into the tack house on the Newman ranch she shared with her son.  
  
“I couldn’t – I just –“ Victoria started. “I don’t know. It just didn’t feel right to share something like this with someone I barely know.”  
  
“Come on, Vicki, we’ve known each other for years.”  
  
“Not very well until recently, though,” Victoria said. Victor had brought on JT as a security guard to Newman Enterprises a few months before, and he and Victoria had become used to running into each other in the hallway when she was on the way home after a long day at work. He was starting his shift for the night. Eventually, he had gotten around to asking her out for lunch, and they had been meeting up a lot recently. Victoria had feared the closeness, feeling it was a betrayal to Ryan, and she would never have called him to pick her up on the anniversary of the love of her life’s deal. Still, he had called her first, worried about her when she didn’t return any of his calls like she usually did faithfully.  
  
JT had managed to talk her down enough to get her to stop sobbing and tell him where she was. Then he had insisted on picking her up immediately, so she didn’t have to wait around in the scummy bar for another two hours. Plus, he did not want her to be alone when she was so vulnerable.  
  
He had arrived at The Pit in less than twenty-five minutes after they disconnected (he had driven like a maniac even with the rain pouring down, not caring if he was pulled over; he just needed to get to her; she needed someone, and he wanted to be that someone), and he had managed to coax out the truth about her encounter with the “Ryan lookalike.” He had understood how she could have been so upset, but he didn’t want her to dwell on it. She needed to heal. Five years was a long time to grieve.  
  
“Vicki, do you need anything?” He asked as he helped her remove her damp coat. He threw it over the back of a wooden chair in the living room.  
  
Vicki shook her head. “No, thanks. You’ve done enough. I just want to see my son right now.” She walked into the back of the house and called out for the nanny she found sitting at the kitchen table reading a romance novel.  
  
Doesn’t she realize real romance doesn’t last? Vicki thought bitterly, but aloud, she simply said, “How was RJ, Paulette?”  
  
“He was a champ, as usual. He even went to bed at eight-thirty without arguing.”  
  
Victoria smiled at the thought of her adorable son. “Great.”  
  
“I’d better get going. My boyfriend is waiting up for me,” Paulette said. She waved goodbye to Victoria and went out the backdoor.  
  
JT walked into the kitchen and touched Vicki’s arm. “Are you going to be okay, or should I stay the night?”  
  
Victoria jumped away from him. “What?”  
  
JT looked sheepish. “That didn’t come outright. I mean, should I crash on the couch in case you or RJ need something?”  
  
Victoria shook her head. “No, thank you. As I said, I just want to see my son. I know he’s asleep, but I just want to hold him for a moment.”  
  
“Okay,” JT said. He offered her a small smile, even though he would much rather have pulled her into his arms and kissed away the pain so evident in her eyes. “I’ll just be going then …”  
  
“Okay, thanks.”  
  
“Lock up after me,” JT said, and opening the back door, started down the steps.  
  
Vicki came to the top of the stairs. “Thanks – JT. Thanks a lot,” she said.  
  
He nodded. “Anytime.” And he would be there for her anytime she needed him.  
  
Because he loved Victoria Newman-McNeil with all of his heart.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Victoria quietly opened the door to her son’s room and crept inside. She didn’t want to wake him but just wanted to see him, touch him, and know that he was real. That he wouldn’t disappear from her life the way his father had.  
  
Victoria bit back a fresh wave of tears and walked over to the little bed, sitting on the edge and reaching out a hand slowly to caress RJ’s silky fine hair. It was the exact shade of Ryan’s. They looked so much alike – right down to the adorable dimples - that sometimes it almost broke Victoria’s heart to see her son. She missed Ryan. She missed him with everything in her, and she missed him for her son’s sake as well. RJ would never know what a wonderful, giving, and amazing man his father had been.  
  
“Mommy, is that you?” RJ asked, suddenly opening his eyes and staring at her.  
  
“Oh, honey, yeah, it’s me. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”  
  
“It's okay, Mommy,” he said. He took her hand. “It's late. I thought you said you would be home to tuck me in.”  
  
“Yeah. I’m sorry for that as well. My car broke down if you can believe it.”  
  
“Oh. Can you fix it?” He asked.  
  
“Sure can,” she said confidently. “Now, why don’t you go back to sleep? Mommy will stay here until you do.”  
  
“Okay, but, Mommy, how come you sound so sad?” He asked, peering up at her in the half-light from the hallway.  
  
Victoria considered saying she was fine but couldn’t manage it. “I just … sometimes, mommies get sad.”  
  
“Why?” He asked. “I don’t want you to be sad anymore.” He climbed out from under his covers and positioned himself in her lap, kissing her cheek.  
  
Victoria smiled. “Thanks, RJ, I needed that.”  
  
“Mommy, what can I do to make you happy?” RJ asked, resting his head under her chin and playing with the ends of her still-damp hair.  
  
“You can just be you – the wonderful you that you are,” she said.  
  
“Okay. I love you, mommy,” he said.  
  
“I love you too … Ryan Jr.,” she said, kissing the top of his head. “I promised your daddy I would take good care of you, and I will.”  
  
“You ‘ready do, Mommy.”  
  
“Thanks, sweetie.” She hugged him once more. “Now get back under your covers. I think we should go to the Athletic Club for pancakes when you wake up in the morning.”  
  
“Pancakes with choco-lit chips?” He asked, rubbing his stomach.  
  
“Of course. Is there any other kind?”  
  
RJ giggled. “Gina makes the best ones ever!”  
  
“She sure does,” Victoria agreed. “Now, good night, sweetie.” Victoria kissed his cheek and, tucking the covers around him, started for the door.  
  
“Mommy?” RJ’s little voice called.  
  
She turned back to face him. “Yeah?”  
  
“Daddy loved you, right?”  
  
Victoria nodded. “I am sure he did.” And she was sure that he had. He had treated her with more respect and care than anyone else in the whole world ever had.  
  
“Then Daddy would want you to be happy too,” RJ said.  
  
A tear slid down Victoria’s cheek. “You’re right, aren’t you?” She said.  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Sleep tight, baby. I love you,” she said, and then shut the door behind her, walking to her room.  
  
She didn’t even bother to change out of her damp clothes; she just slid right into bed, pulling up the covers to her chin. She played over her son’s innocent words in her mind.  
  
_“Daddy loved you, didn’t he?”  
  
“Then Daddy would want you to be happy too.”_  
  
Victoria wiped away her tears and picked up her and Ryan's picture together on the day they learned RJ was coming. Just two months before, he had been shot and killed following their wedding ceremony. She kissed the picture of Ryan’s face.  
  
“You do want me to be happy, don’t you, Ryan?” she said.  
  
She felt a sensation of warmth blanket her and knew somehow that he really did.  
  
FINIS


End file.
